Iron Maiden’s ‘Ed Force One’ 747 Tour Jet Badly Damaged In Chile

“Ed Force One was this morning tethered to a tow truck to be taken for refueling prior to flying over the Andes to Cordoba for the next show. On moving the steering pin that is part of the mechanism that connects the ground tug to the aircraft seemingly fell out. On making a turn the aircraft had no steering and collided with the ground tug badly damaging the undercarriage, two of the aircrafts engines and injuring two ground tug operators, both of whom have been taken to hospital. We hope of course that they make a full and speedy recovery and we will be closely monitoring their progress. The flight engineers are on site and evaluating the damage, but their initial report is that the engines have suffered large damage and will require an extended period of maintenance and possibly two new engines.”

As you can probably imagine by the statement and these photos, the damage was severe and will cost many millions of dollars to fix. Luckily nobody died in the event.

Dubbed “Ed Force One” by fans via an online naming contest, the jet is piloted by lead singer Bruce Dickinson who has been a pilot for decades and even worked for an airline for a period of time. The aircraft itself is an ex-Air France 747-400 that was reconfigured by the cargo jet masters at Russian-owned Volga Dnepr Airlines to accommodate the Iron Maiden tour team and their 20 tons of stage gear.